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Posts Tagged: vBulletin hack

Attackers appear to have compromised tens of thousands of Web sites using a security weakness in sites powered by the forum software vBulletin, security experts warn.

Attack tool for exploiting vulnerable vBulletin forums.

In a blog post in late August, vBulletin maker JelsoftInternet Brands Inc. warned users that failing to remove the “/install” and “/core/install” directories on sites running 4.x and 5.x versions of the forum software could render them easily hackable. But apparently many vBulletin-based sites didn’t get that memo: According to Web site security firm Imperva, more than 35,000 sites were recently hacked via this vulnerability.

The security weakness lets attackers quickly discover which forums are vulnerable, and then use automated, open-source exploit tools to add administrator accounts to vulnerable sites.

Imperva said the compromised sites appear to have been hacked by one of two sets of exploit tools that have been released publicly online. The first was apparently used in a mass Website defacement campaign. A Google search for forums with the the rather conspicuously-named administrator account added in that attack (“Th3H4ck”) shows that many of the hack sites also are hosting malware. Among the sites apparently compromised is a support forum for the National Runaway Safeline and a site selling vBulletin add-ons.

The second tool does effectively the same thing, except with a bit more stealth: The administrator account that gets added to hacked forums is more innocuously named “supportvb”. Here’s a Google search that offers a rough idea of the forums compromised with this exploit, which was apparently authored or at least publicly released by this guy.